Resolve a Fight with a Remote Colleague

Whether you’re exchanging snarky emails, openly disagreeing on a conference call, or giving each other the silent treatment, it’s frustrating and painful to fight with a colleague when you’re not in the same office or time zone. Without the benefit of face time and forced togetherness, disagreements can easily be left unaddressed or quickly spiral out of control. What makes fighting from afar so problematic? What’s the best way to solve a disagreement with someone who’s in a different location? And how do you mend the relationship if you can’t look the other person in the eye?

What the Experts SayThere are several things that make conflict with a remote colleague challenging, says Mark Mortensen, an associate professor of organizational behavior at INSEAD. “The two main things that get in the way are the lack of shared understanding about how you work and lack of shared identity,” he says. When you don’t have things in common, you’re less likely to give the person the benefit of the doubt. Plus, you don’t know how the other person is reacting. Is he being quiet because he’s setting aside his feelings or is he actually stewing? “You’re not seeing body language, facial expressions, or hearing voice intonation,” says Pamela Hinds, a professor in management science and engineering at Stanford University. “By the time, you realize there’s a conflict it’s often much later than if you were sitting side-by-side.” Not all is lost, of course. “The same approaches that work face-to-face also work virtually,” says Mortensen. “They’re just not going to come as easily.” Here are a few things to think about and do differently when tension is brewing with a colleague miles away.

Appreciate the upsides“There are a lot of upsides to working at a distance,” says Mortensen. For example, you often let the small things go. “If we’re meeting in person, it might take one look at me to tell that I’m mad but on the phone, you might just sense that I’m a little more snippy than usual and maybe don’t make too much of it,” he says. Hinds agrees: “When you’re face-to-face, you tend to thrash it out even if your position isn’t that well thought out.” With distance, there is often forgiveness or even just ignorance. “You’re less likely to detect annoyance, eye rolling, and all the other cues that go along with conflict,” she says. “The focus tends to be much more on the work and the content of the work.”

Try to give your colleague the benefit of the doubtBecause you don’t have a shared context—you’re not sitting in the same building, experiencing the same weather, seeing the same things—it’s easy to make assumptions about how your colleague feels or why he is acting the way he is. If he’s always late to your weekly call, you might presume that he doesn’t respect your time or he’s not committed to the project. “Our natural reaction is to make personal attributions when something goes wrong, rather than situational attributions,” explains Hinds. Instead of thinking the worst about your colleague (“He’s so self-absorbed!”) ask yourself what else could be going on. Maybe he’s late because he has a meeting in another building right before yours. Perhaps he’s in a bad mood because it’s been raining for a week straight where he is. Admit to yourself that you don’t know why he’s acting the way he is and it may have nothing to do with you.

Move the conversation away from emailChances are most of your interaction with your remote colleague is over email. This is problematic. A 2007 study by Syracuse’s Kristin Byron showed what we all know intuitively or have come to learn: using e-mail generally increases the likelihood of conflict and miscommunication. “We’ve evolved as humans to pick up on contextual cues. I read your facial expressions. I can tell when you’re making a joke or not. When we’re not in the same place, I don’t have those cues at my disposal,” says Mortensen. If you’re arguing via email, stop. Pick up the phone and call your colleague, or schedule a time to do a Skype video call. “In order to resolve a conflict, both sides have to understand the other’s perspective. That’s much harder to do when you can’t see each other and the communication isn’t synchronous,” says Hinds.

Focus on what you have in commonWhen you’re talking with your colleague—by phone or video—start the conversation by highlighting what you have in common. You can talk about how you’re both parents of young children, for example, or the college you both went to, or your shared commitment to the job. “Remind people about shared experiences, shared victories, wins. Those will focus people on how we’re more similar than not,” he says. You don’t have to do this overtly by saying, “Hey, we’re both moms!” but you can ask about her kids or tell a quick story about yours. “The more you make those things front and center, the more people will feel interdependent on each other,” says Mortensen.

See the other sideOne of the key skills in resolving a conflict is perspective taking, seeing things from the other person’s point of view. So put yourself in her shoes and imagine what she’s experiencing. Why might she be upset? What about this situation is frustrating to her? “That will put you in a stronger position to solve the problem, and to mend the fences later on,” says Mortensen. You may be working with limited information if you’ve only met your colleague in person a few times, so ask questions like, “How are you seeing this situation? What might I be missing because I’m here and not there?” You can also encourage your colleague to see things from your vantage point by asking, “If you were me, what would you do?” “This is helpful in any conflict, but especially in distributed teams,” says Mortensen.

Consider cultural differences“Language and cultural differences often compound the issue,” says Hinds. It can be hard to know how to handle a conflict with someone who is from a different culture, who may send different emotional cues, or with whom you don’t share a language. “If someone says, ‘No, it’s fine,’ it may not mean that. It may mean, ‘I’m in complete disagreement with that but I’m not going to say that,’” she says. This is particularly challenging for Americans: “In the U.S., we tend to be relatively direct and we’re not as adept at reading more subtle cues from less direct cultures.” If you’re not sure how to translate their behavior, find someone who can advise you, a colleague in the same office or from the same culture.

Bring in someone else if necessaryIf you’re not able to solve the issue between the two of you, you may need to ask someone else to intervene. “It helps to involve a third person, someone who is not invested in the content of the conflict, to help you reflect and integrate both sides,” says Hinds. It doesn’t matter where that person is located, “as long as the people involved in the conflict agree that the person is reasonable.”

Use the fight to strengthen your relationshipOne of the benefits of solving a conflict with a remote colleague is you then have a shared experience. You want disagreements to become water under the bridge but it’s helpful to talk about them as well. “Once you’ve gotten past the point where the fight’s really raw and you can speak about it in a neutral way, you can talk about what happened and that becomes a shared identity,” says Mortensen. Hinds agrees: “If the resolution went well and you’re both feeling good about it, that’s all you need. It’s very beneficial to the relationship.”

Make a visitTo prevent further conflicts, try to travel to your colleague’s office, if that’s feasible, or invite her to yours. It helps to see “how they interpret you, what it’s like to be the person in Japan working with the person in Boston,” says Mortensen.

If you can’t visit in person, Mortensen suggests spending the first 5-10 minutes of a meeting talking about your work contexts. You can say, “Tell me something I don’t know about you or your office” or share information about your own situation—what your office looks like, who you sit next to, what’s happening outside. Consider giving your colleague a tour of your office on Skype or FaceTime.

Increase informal communicationResearch by Mortensen and Hinds shows that casual, unplanned communication dramatically reduces conflict when you’re not in the same location. Take advantage of opportunities for informal interactions. Keep your instant messenger open to share personal snippets or jokes throughout the day. Take virtual breaks together, chatting on the phone while you both sip tea. Or you might leave your computer cameras on so that you can see each other throughout the day. “These video links between offices create a shared space and provide more opportunities for these spontaneous—but often very productive—workplace conversations,” says Mortensen.

Principles to Remember

Do:

Highlight anything you have in common—personal or work-related

Put yourself in your colleague’s shoes and try to understand how she sees you

Go visit your colleague in person, if feasible

Don’t:

Fight over email—pick up the phone or get on a video call

Assume the worst about your colleague—admit that you don’t know why she’s behaving the way she is

Just put the fight behind you—use it as a shared experience to strengthen your relationship

Case study #1: Pick up the phoneMarissa Weiner and her colleague Tara only saw each other in person when Marissa visited their healthcare organization’s headquarters in Maryland (names and some details have been changed). Tara had a reputation for being difficult to work with, but Marissa wasn’t that bothered by her. “I was one of the few people who got along with her. I even defended her to other people who thought she was a pain,” says Marissa. But when the two women started working closely on an initiative that Tara was leading, things changed. Tara often sent emails, cc’ing other team members, openly criticizing Marissa’s work. They were curt and didn’t include any of the usual pleasantries. Tara often sent them late at night so Marissa would wake up to these harsh notes in her inbox. “At first I let it go,” she says. “Part of me knew that she didn’t mean to be nasty, that it was a style issue.”

But she soon realized that she was stewing about it. “Truthfully, the emails hurt my feelings and I really didn’t like being criticized in front of my colleagues,” she says. On her next trip to Maryland, she asked Tara out to dinner. “I was very direct and told her that her emails were bothering me, that it felt like she didn’t respect my work.” Tara was taken by surprise. She said she hadn’t intended to offend Marissa.

She apologized and vowed to be more careful, but things didn’t improve immediately. “She still sent those emails but I would point it out to her right away. Instead of emailing her back, I would pick up the phone. When she can hear my voice, she is far less defensive,” she says. Marissa admits that it took a lot of effort to do this but “it was better than feeling resentful. I couldn’t change her behavior but I could explain how her behavior was impacting me.”

They are still working on the project and Marissa says it’s going much more smoothly. “We understand each other better and I’ve developed tactics to work with her. She still has a reputation but she also has a lot to contribute.”

Case study #2: Don’t assume your colleague is disrespecting youWhen Leah Briar, the New York-based sales development director of a West Coast media company was put on an important research project with Irina, a colleague who worked at headquarters in San Francisco, she knew it was going to be a challenge (names and some details have been changed). Leah had always been bothered by Irina’s tone of voice on the phone. “I never really liked her communication style, She has a weird phone cadence and pauses and hesitates a lot,” she explains.

Previously Leah had “just dealt with it.” But when she and Irina starting speaking daily in order to complete the research for a major event that was only several weeks away, her frustration grew and she didn’t hide it. During Irina’s pauses, she would often snap, “Do you understand what I’m saying? Are you there? Are we on the same page?” And Irina would snap back, “Yes, I’m here.”

“What I found infuriating was that she wasn’t clueing me into her process; she wasn’t narrating what she was going through, so I was left in the dark,” Leah recalls. Finally, after a week of tense calls, she suggested they use Skype and Irina agreed. “She was definitely feeling exasperated too. She couldn’t understand why I was being so impatient.”

The change made all the difference. “I could see her pauses physically. I saw that was hearing me and paying attention; she wasn’t multitasking or distracted. She was just thinking.” Irina seemed much more relaxed too. “Her tone of voice completely changed.”